The Metro Project Video on the Need for It and What It Will Include / Planning Manager
In recent weeks, the companies that won the tender to manage the three metro lines in Gush Dan began their work and put the final stamp: as revealed yesterday in Walla Automobile, there will be no full subway network here before 2050. The traffic jams aren't going anywhere, nor are our long arrival times from place to place in the central region.
How did it happen that the date of operation of the metro was moved to 2040, and that too only for part of the network, when until a year and a half ago there was talk of 2032? And more precisely after the stage of approving the route of the three lines was completed, without dramatic changes.
Reminder: The metro project includes a network of three underground lines with a total length of 150 kilometers with 109 stations, covering 24 local authorities throughout the Dan region. These lines are expected to carry about two million passengers a day.
The first metro line (M1), 85 km long, will run on a north-south axis and will serve the cities of Raanana, Herzliya, Ramat Hasharon, Kfar Saba, Hod Hasharon, Tel Aviv, Bat Yam, Holon, Rishon LeZion, Nes Ziona, Rehovot, Be'er Yaakov, Ramle and Lod, as well as future development areas including IMI Hasharon, Glilot Junction, Holon and Zrifin.
The second metro line (M2) will be 25 km long and will run on an east-west axis. The line will serve the cities of Petah Tikva, Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak, Givatayim and Tel Aviv, as well as future development areas, including the Sirkin area.
The third metro line (3M), 39 km long, will be a semi-ring line that will connect all the lines and serve the cities of Bat Yam, Holon, Azur, Or Yehuda, Givat Shmuel, Kiryat Ono, Petah Tikva, Tel Aviv, Ramat Hasharon and Herzliya, and future development areas including Galil Yam, western Ramat Hasharon, Tel Hashomer and Or Yehuda.
In 2040, operation is scheduled to begin between Glilot south of Tel Aviv, the Rishonim station in Rishon LeZion, Ben Gurion Airport and Kiryat Ono. Ten years later, full operation is scheduled to begin, including the full operation of the M1 line of the metro, all the way to Rehovot, Ramle and Lod in the southern Gush Dan region to Herzliya, Ra'anana and Hod Hasharon, including a direct link between the Ono Valley and Ramat HaHayal, Ramat Hasharon and Glilot.
Assembling a digging machine for the red line. Digging a larger tunnel that will contain the stations will reduce disturbance at the ground surface / Reuven Castro
Haim Glick, CEO of NTA, which plans and will be responsible for the construction of the metro, said publicly yesterday what has been whispered in the company's corridors until now. There is no possibility of finishing the project on the timetable presented to the public so far.
Digging the tunnels is considered the simpler part. Huge digging machines that operate 24/7 and work from point to point. During peak time, more than 20 such machines will be operated under Gush Dan.
The more complex part is the construction of the stations themselves, digging the huge pit above the tunnel and filling it with the station. This is the part that is well felt above ground in the closure of areas, roads and the elimination of parking. Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv, under which the underground part of the light rail's Green Line will pass, is a snapshot, and it is a section along which there are only three such stations. To open the first stage of the metro need to complete 59 such stations.
NTA has not yet begun talks with the municipalities and local authorities regarding the timetable for the work, but apart from Ron Huldai, there is no other mayor who would agree that so many streets in his city will be dug at the same time, with severe traffic disruptions. And Huldai is scheduled to run for mayor of Tel Aviv for the last time next month.
Therefore, the work will have to be spread out over more years. On paper, it will also ease the state budget, but in practice it will cost us much more because of the damage caused by traffic jams and the loss of work and leisure hours. About NIS 31 billion a year, to be precise, according to the State Comptroller's report published yesterday.
There is one solution that may greatly ease the situation, but will require a redesign of the metro: instead of building two parallel tunnels and stations between them, as is currently planned, the construction of one large tunnel, which will contain both train traffic on both sides and the stations. So the impact on the ground surface is much smaller, only the construction of the entrances and exits to the stations, when the stations themselves are built "from below".
Such construction will lead to the use of fewer quarrying machines, but much larger. The pace of work will be faster, but this requires reapproval of the route plans. The entire project does not need to be reapproved: the route is the same, the locations of the stations are the same locations, and so are the locations of train garages, depots. All the change is in the underground part. The time wasted on re-approval will be earned by the project during execution and can even shorten the opening schedule.
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Launch of the light rail. Are our politicians now capable of making the necessary decisions?/Reuven Castro
Do NTA and the Ministries of Transport and Finance have the power to start everything half over again? Transportation Minister Miri Regev made her opinion on the project clear to finance officials when she suggested during budget discussions in recent days to postpone the metro again for funding reasons, in order to preserve projects it sought to promote in the territories. The Ministry of Finance clarified that this is not feasible and is trying to advance the approval of the Metro Law as early as next month in order to avoid further delays.
One can look at the light rail's red line as a lesson: there the state adhered to the plan from 30 years ago, and refused to update it even when it was clear that the map of demand and employment centers had changed since then. The result: the Red Line works, but is far from meeting forecasts of 230,<> passengers a day. In fact, less than half that number travels on it. The metro is still at a stage where such mistakes can be avoided.
- More on the subject:
- Gush Dan metro
- Ministry of Transport
- NTA